PDA

View Full Version : Aristotle On the Maintenance of Tyranny



Sol Invictus
02-18-2010, 02:35 PM
Alex Jones | Infowars.com | February 18, 2010

In book 5 of the Politics, Aristotle claims that there exists two different and completely opposed ways of maintaining tyranny: either it can be done through a reign of open terror and oppression, or through the cloaking of tyranny as a virtuous form of kingship, understood as one man rule exercised according to the principles of justice and the common good.

The following is an extract from Aristotle Politics book V xi (1313a18-1315a40)
And [monarchies] are preserved, to speak generally, by the opposite causes; or, if we consider them separately, (1) royalty is preserved by the limitation of its powers. The more restricted the functions of kings, the longer their power will last unimpaired; for then they are more moderate and not so despotic in their ways; and they are less envied by their subjects.

This is the reason why the kingly office has lasted so long among the Molossians. And for a similar reason it has continued among the Lacedaemonians, because there it was always divided between two, and afterwards further limited by Theopompus in various respects, more particularly by the establishment of the Ephoralty.

He diminished the power of the kings, but established on a more lasting basis the kingly office, which was thus made in a certain sense not less, but greater.

There is a story that when his wife once asked him whether he was not ashamed to leave to his sons a royal power which was less than he had inherited from his father, ‘No indeed,’ he replied, ‘for the power which I leave to them will be more lasting.’

Read More Here (http://www.infowars.com/aristotle-on-the-maintenance-of-tyranny/)